A destination content strategy doesn’t create content for SEO purposes only, but also to delight the travel customer in the destination. This sounds obvious, although most travel brands create destination content to fill inspirational blog posts, without considering the true value and opportunity of this destination content.
A full-cycle destination content strategy creates digital media to satisfy the travelers once they are on their trip, while also delivering SEO value. In delivering online experiences via true valuable in-destination content, a virtuous circle is completed as travelers spend time on the brand’s website (through long sessions, reduced bounce rate, etc.), and this further impacts your SEO goals. As a result, this strategy has a unique way of measuring ROI.
This post will help you understand:
- How to craft content to really help travelers.
- How to design a strategy like this.
- How to calculate your marketing ROI for this strategy.
1. Create Content to Support the In-Destination Traveler
In-destination travelers are in the search of local gems and contextual information to make a decision on what to do in-destination. Envision content that will provide value at the last minute, for real actionable experiences.
Think about your traveler in-destination. What is your staff recommending them live? What are these travelers asking on the street or searching online at that precise moment? Is it ‘where is the best area to walk with the family in the afternoon’? Is it about unknown restaurants praised by locals?
Follow these types of questions to create destination content, just think on real inquires your travelers have, and create content to answer and adapt to those requirements.
After having some idea on what kind of topics to write about, confirm if those ideas are really being searched online, by doing a keywords research. This will show you the search volume of a specific keyword phrase. If you serve a niche group of traveler-users, get to know from your team what are the travelers are asking during their live interactions with them. Create content to answer these queries.
To create this content, pair a writer with a local expert as each has unique and complementary abilities.
2. Craft a Comprehensive Destination Content Strategy:
Impact Your Travelers on their Trip
Now that you have the content, what is next?
Create a user experience using the right interfaces. Travel content needs to be connected to a map, to places, to images and even videos. Map interfaces are fundamental in the travel space.
Connect content to your ancillary revenue. You ask why? Well, because travelers are looking to complete their purchase. Offers and products just-in-time add a lot value to travelers, and also to bring revenue to your business.
Once the content is ready, send it to your guest at the right time. Just in time!
- For hotels, send an email to the guest at the moment of check-in.
- For e-mobility players (Airlines, Bus, Train, and Rental Cars companies), send an email to travelers on the day he is landing/arriving at a destination.
- Understand the reservation information to target your guests with the correct content (reservation includes kids, reservation is only for a couple, reservations includes weekends, etc.)
- Complete the virtuous cycle of delighting guests in destination.
- If you reach guests in destination, you will get their time spent on your website, increase page views, and reduce bounce rate;
This will translate into organic users as you increase your SEO rank. Here, you can check an example of how a travel business like yours delivered a better online guest experience by sending customized destination guides to guests at the moment of their arrival at the destination, increasing their time spent on the website by 144%.
3. Cost-Benefit Analysis: Calculate your Marketing ROI for this Strategy
To measure ROI on a full-cycle destination content marketing strategy as the one described above, we need to factor in all the relevant costs and benefits involved.
Costs:
- Content Creation: How have you spent on writing, editing and even translating your content?
- Distribution Costs: Which tools are you using to distribute the content to guests?
- Technology Costs: Which tools are you investing in for your website interfaces, maps, etc.?
Benefits:
Delight Guests In-Destination (Online User Experience): Allocate a dollar value to this service for each traveler you reach with your content. Calculate how many users you are reaching during the time period you are calculating for. Multiply both the numbers.
More Users via SEO Improvements of Online User Engagement (increase time spent on website, reduce bounce rate, and increase page views): Estimate how many more users you will bring, and how many of those will convert, times the margin sales for that traveler. Discount this number by the time it will take you to increase your SEO ranking.
Cost-Savings of Printed Maps: If you replace a paper strategy, discount the cost of the previous strategy.
Additional Ancillary Revenue: If you link your content to additional products, estimate the additional sales you will achieve.
Destination Content Strategy Pro-Tip:
Ready to empower your website with a destination marketing software and create, update and measure high-quality travel content that attracts and engages your visitors? You may as well search for a good destination marketing software.
